2hotFeature one of my absolute favorites!

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Janae Milner Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Yash Wade Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

TonyMontana96 An unimportant, lousy justice system drama, that has no insight into its subject matter, nor does it showcase any actual justice, it's merely a dull bore, that will be forgotten come tomorrow. The first half an hour is decent, showing the scum committing there crimes, and showing there court trial, but after all that is devolves into this ten middle aged, good citizens sitting round a table and rambling on for the next hour, and that I cannot fathom, why anyone would label this as good is beyond me, because it's a justice film that doesn't actually show much in terms of justice, and the only real violence comes in the last ten minutes, and I was falling asleep by then because the picture was dreadfully paced, it's sluggish, dreary and rather disappointing. Sure there will be worse films, but this is a film that could have been memorable, worthwhile and entertaining, and instead goes down as forgettable and bland.Michael Douglas is good as Judge Stephen Hardin, Yaphet Kotto play's honest Detective Harry Lowes very well and Hal Holbrook (Magnum Force) is effortlessly engaging as Judge Benjamin Caulfield, an important member of the secret society and friend of Hardin. The rest of the cast are pretty good to, making it obvious that the reason the film doesn't work is due to the writing and the narrative, Peter Hyams's direction may have been decent but he also helped write the screenplay, himself and Rodrick Taylor have made a mess of it, unsure on what film they actually wanted to make by including a ridiculous plot point that sees Steven changing his mind about being a part of this society, in the last ten minutes he runs to their secret hideout to inform two child murderers that they are in danger, these scumbags beat him up and probably would have killed him, had he not got a kick in, and headed for the exit which ends in more stupidity.I have no idea what they were thinking with the ending, it's a train-wreck of sorts, that not only lacks sense but lacks an inventive approach and feels heavily forced, most likely thrown in the mix when Hyams realized the picture lacked action full stop, and I did not expect a full on action picture, but I wanted to see some form of justice, a good narrative and insightful dialogue, but after thirty minutes all you get is dull, uninspired material that is so boring, you're tempted to sleep through the remainder of the film. The Star Chamber is forgettable, boring stuff that completely wastes an intriguing premise, by dwelling too much on pointless dialogue, and uninteresting plot devices.

Larkin Huey Too many well-known facts were omitted in this movie, and criminals didn't say what criminals say, all this in an apparent but weak attempt to preserve the purpose of the movie. It just never got off the ground. The two innocent men who were arrested for the murder of the ten-year-old boy let their lawyer argue that the police illegally searched their van, but never once proclaimed their innocence to the court nor to their lawyer. Even guilty men do that.The two detectives waiting at the trash can in the beginning of the movie say that they can't get a search warrant there in the next 30 seconds because that's when the trash is going into the truck, like they can't stop it, but after they dump the trash in the truck, the detectives, apparently with a newfound power, flippantly flash their badges at the trash guys, telling them not to pull the lever. That didn't make any sense.Men are getting away with murder because of bizarre glitches in the law in this movie, but when the judges order hits on murderers, it's somehow moral when Hal Holbrook says he can sleep at night. Michael Douglas's "we've become them" statement summed that up.It was little annoyances like those that kept a mediocre movie from being a great movie. In order to make a good point, as this one attempted, a movie must appear as real life, but this one wasn't even close. Among already mentioned items, there's no reason Judge Hardin would warn the two guys scheduled for a hit. Besides that, the judges began the hit on those two with apparent ease, but found it impossible to stop it. There were just too many parts of this movie that weren't believable and I found it hard to take seriously.

Vincent Bartning I thought the film's ending, contrary to others, showed something about why vigilante justice doesn't work. Moreover, though it gets there in a round-about way, it shows that justice has many complex twists and turns. As H.L. Mencken gets credit for saying, "For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong."Hollywood justice leads us to believe that cops can't search garbage on the curb, but in reality, on the contrary, they don't even have to wait for the city's own truck to arrive to search one's "private" garbage. Moreover, in reality, cops violate the law with impunity. Judges work "buddy buddy" with cops, contrary to the portrayal in _The Star Chamber_.Judges make a mistake in this movie, and they often make mistakes, too often. In this movie, they make mistakes with both criminals and innocents alike, and in reality they do likewise. However, in reality, in the "aughts" at least, DA's go after their "usual suspects," letting other violent criminals go in lieu of non-violent crimes where prosecutors don't have to worry about justice but have evidence of their liking, and law enforcement get away with whatever they want, including murdering people such as Sean Bell and Cau Tran in San Jose and New York, the latter in her own home.

zyklonbe this is one of my favorite movies of all time! Not only does it have an all star cast, but is well written and really brings up some very good points about the law. The acting is amazing and is a great story. Deserves 4 stars instead of the two it received. Star Chamber has some of the best actors in it, including Michael Douglas, Hal Holbrook, Yaphet Kotto, Don Calfa, and Joe Regalbuto, just to name a few of the most popular. If you haven't seen this movie, SEE IT. It deals with the law and how the American Justice system is sometimes perverted, and an idea that even though the law isn't always right, it has its reasons for being that way.